OCD

Morten Birket-Smith, psychiatrist

OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is a disease in which your anxiety can be linked to specific thoughts or actions. It means that you have to repeat a certain action and often repeat it over and over again. You might for example wash yourself again and again or you might think of certain long strings of words or sentences, in order to calm yourself down. Or perhaps you just have to carry out time-consuming rituals such as walking to the front door many times a day to check that the door is locked.

If you are suffering from OCD, effective treatment with medicine and psychotherapy is often possible.